The Bicycle Thief - Review

Post-World War II Italy is going through devastating period of depression. A job is hard to come by. Antonio Ricci manages to get a job after two years of unemployment: to drive around Rome and put up posters of Rita Heyworth, and it requires a bicycle. His bicycle is broken and he goes to great length to put together a sum of money enough to repair it. But his precious bicycle is stolen the first day of work. Together with his son they go around the city trying to recover the bicycle, but all they find is desperation.

The bicycle thief is one of the most acclaimed Italian movies. It was written and directed by Vittorio De Sica based on the novel by Luigi Bartolini. It’s a powerful drama set in the post-war Italy about a simple man trying to keep his family fed during times of hardship and this man is being crushed by the invisible forces of economic depression and bad luck.

The movie is a poetic work of art in every respect. The bicycle thief is a very organic and moving film. The scene when Bruno and Antonio are under the rain is wonderful, and there are other powerful scenes like that, like the scene in the tratoria where a man plays mandolin and Bruno looks at some well-off customers eating full pasta plates while he and his father are eating just mozzarella and bread, but pretend to be eating a royal treat. And the scene where Antonio is forced to steal and Bruno saw it was my favourite scene. The father is crushed, but Bruno forgives him when he slips his hand into his father’s in the final scene when they disappear in the crowd. Through this pair or people De Sica paints a picture of life of all people in Italy.

The Great Dictator - Review

The Great Dictator is about the violence of war, the corrupting influence of power, and the persecution of Jews during World War II. Still it’s one of the funniest movies ever made.

Charles Chaplin made the movie while the U.S. was still technically at peace with Nazi Germany, and many were still pushing to keep Americans out of the “European war.” Chaplin’s film was a prescient assault on Hitler and National Socialism.

In World War One, a nameless Jewish barber (Charles Chaplin) is injured fighting for the fictional nation of Tomania, and spends years in a veterans’ hospital. He eventually wanders home, unaware that the Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel (also Chaplin) has seized absolute power and turned Tomania into an anti-semitic war machine.

While defending his shop from storm troopers, the barber meets the beautiful Hannah (Paulette Goddard -- near the end of her long romantic relationship with Chaplin,) and becomes an unwitting hero to the nascent resistance movement developing in the ghetto.

Meanwhile, Hynkle plots to conquer the neighboring nation of Osterlich and become Emperor of the World (a scheme commemorated in Chaplin’s delicate, fiendish dance with an inflatable globe.)

In a classic mistaken identity ruse, the poor Jewish barber is taken for merciless Hynkle, leading to a heartfelt plea from Chaplin himself for humanity and justice -- surely one of the greatest speeches ever captured on film.

Almost every scene in The Great Dictator is perfect: the iconic globe dance, Hynkle’s poorly-translated address to the Tomanian people, the musical shaving scene, an upside-down airplane, all capped by Chaplin’s heartrending final soliloquy.

But the film is still more that the sum of its parts (no matter how glorious those parts may be.) See it when you want to believe that there’s still good in the world -- and watch Charlie Chaplin get hit with a frying pan while you’re at it.

Hey guys,

I am new into this blogging world and I hope it treats me well. One of the main reasons why I am doing this is for my journalism assignment but let’s hope that I make good use of it and who knows I might actually start blogging regularly.